Lily is an acoustic folk/pop singer/songwriter, writing sensory lyrics and melodies with a melancholic undertone. Her playing balances on thin lines between songs and poems. Authentic songwriting, inspired by poets and the love for unfamiliar forms.
After music lessons in several instruments, she got her first guitar at fourteen. She started writing songs almost immediately. This gave a new swing to her poetry, which she has been writing since she was very young. Some words wanted to be in songs and others in poems. Sometimes the distinction is not so clear and they find their way in between or in a hybrid of a song and a poem.
During several trips to the USA between 1997 and 2001, she had the chance to play in different places and shared gigs with local musicians, mostly in Seattle, often with moodblues musician jr., for who she also sang back up vocals at Bumbershoot Festival.
This was a great buzz to her music and she recorded her first cd in 2001, titled 'No Alibi'. In 2008 her latest solo album 'On This Ground' released on Sibyl Sings, her label for music and poetry. An EP, 'South' with songs and poetry, came out in 2006.
If she is not playing solo, she often plays with Felicity Provan, accompanying her with daring harmonics in vocals and trumpet.
In 2006 she started the band Songs & Poems; Acoustic folk/pop songs with a bold mix of poetry and improvised music by one singer/songwriter, one poet and four innovative instrumentalists. In the band are Michael Moore (reeds), Felicity Provan (trumpet, vocals) Julyen Hamilton (poetry), Michael Vatcher (percussion) and Joost Buis (trombone, lap steel guitar).
This particular bringing together of sounds and approaches has its origins in her moving to Amsterdam to dance, in 1989. During her years at the Theaterschool, these musicians were playing live in classes and they made performances together. She saw them play in many live concerts from small venues to big festivals. After several trips to the USA, which inspired her to perform more with her songs, the wish grew to play with these musicians, with this kind of exciting music. She wanted the songs to be heard in the wider context of this aliveness and the possibility of not knowing yet where they might be taken to. Her love for poetry has always made it seem natural to include poems in a concert alongside the songs.
Based in Amsterdam, but with a love for bringing her music to different contexts, places and people, she has played in venues and festivals in The Netherlands (Motel Mozaique, with a dance/music solo, Amsterdam Literary festival), Seattle (incl. backing vocals for local moodblues singer jr, at Bumbershoot), New York (cd presentation at The Bowery Poetry Club), Adelaide (Joiner's Arms, radio shows) and Finland among others.
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